Scarlet Legacy Review

Scarlet Legacy  Genre: Fantasy MMORPG Publisher: Gamescampus Released: 2011
"All things considered, Scarlet Legacy is a decisively-fun MMORPG to experience"

Scarlet Legacy is among the latest batch of MMORPG offerings in the burgeoning free-to-play market that aims straight for the kind of gameplay offered by mainstream titles (World of Warcraft, for example) with an underlying theme related to certain subsets of global cultural history. There's a heavy influence from ancient Chinese history in the world of Scarlet Legacy that comes replete with matching scenery, voice acting, virtual architecture and so forth that really gives the environments, settlements and other regions a truly authentic look and feel.

Not excellent

Unfortunately, there's a certain subset of flaws that hold Scarlet Legacy back from true excellence in its category. Among the inherent missteps are various grammatical problems, control issues and the general user interface design. Yes, the game makes absolutely no sense in which button or trigger does what, sticking players instead with almost-meaningless icons and limited visual cues thereof. You read that one in exactly the right context! We’re talking about the entirety of a user interface that’s based almost entirely on the use of various button icons rather than giving you proper labeling. In fact, you have to pass your mouse pointer over the icons to bring up a tooltip label or five just to figure out which button does what. So who put Excel and Word in my online game, anyway? The end result of this utter functionality madness is in how you’ end up with a real head-scratching pile of blatant, potentially-confusing hooey like I haven’t seen in the majority of the MMORPG games that I have EVER played before!

Sure, I'll take that quest?

Worse still, the fact that numerous written gaffes and various typographical bloopers abound in most of the quest dialog and conversations is yet another pile of hooey thereof. Case in point: I’ve seen repeated instances of a “You” instead of a “Your” in exceptionally-high levels of utter consistency, and quest acceptance uses a “Sure” button label instead of something like Confirm, Accept or something else thereof. I’m not exactly sold on whether or not this “lost in translation” ethos was deliberately scripted thereof, but it’s worth pointing this out in case a number of players are confused by what the meaning is or not. This especially holds as undeniably honest whether or not it comes off as similarly comparative, even if there’s a certain extent of “what the “blank?” moments going on here – especially for the kind of person who can really be turned away when something like this pops up. Now I would have obviously been somewhat more accepting of the gaffes here and there, but unfortunately it also extends to the aforementioned button tooltips as well. You know, like writing “Left game” instead of “Exit Game” or whatever other such equivalent? What kind of localization team did these people have!? Throw me a bone here!

There’s even a small disconnection between how combat and NPC interactions are triggered within the game environment of such a consistency that may result in further confusion thereof. Whereas the left mouse button is used for the latter game function herein, you actually have to right-click enemies in order to engage battle mode. I would have obviously preferred some consistency with how individual actions would have been triggered in the game world; as it stands here, the lack thereof regarding how the game controls function thereof may also be somewhat confusing – especially for novice MMORPG players who could more easily forget which mouse button does what. Thankfully enough, provisions in terms of Scarlet Legacy's hotkey system are easily deducible without question (and on your computer screen to boot) though I do personally wish that more attention would have been directed at everything else.

You’ll be amazed by what Scarlet Legacy has to offer

That much having been duly noted thereof, it should be mentioned that Scarlet Legacy does in fact ascribe to your usual choice between WASD and mouse-based navigation controls, though using the former method is also complicated somewhat by the use of your Q and E keys for changing your heading thereof, rendering the A and D to some rather mundane implementation of a strafing function equivalency, as if this were a shooter game rather than a MMORPG. You also have your typical selection of wolves, spiders and other enemy types for your disposition thereof, along with some unexpected twists, gotchas and various other surprises thereof. Even within the confines of my personally-ascribed tutorial area for warrior-class players (spoiler alert!), I had to do some cannibalization of human bandits, learn about using a cleverly-designed “kung-fu” double-jump, master the execution of a lightning-fast multi-hit skill, discover the concept of battle stances, and so forth. Even so, there’s a few of those dreaded “fetch quests” that you have to complete early on – but once you get into the main areas of the game world (beginning with the relatively-expansive Yang City) you’ll be amazed by what Scarlet Legacy has to offer... provided that you can put up with the inherent quirks as previously mentioned, of course. Another case in point: the 12 Union tower located dead center in Yang City has to be seen (and interacted with) in order to believe how its structure and functionality work thereof. Climbing the massive structure is done not through your usual stairways and walkways, but through utilization of warp fields located dead center within the structural composure of the tower itself.

You’ll also be surprised to know that (more spoilers ahead!) Scarlet Legacy initiates the classic battle-triggered soundtrack switch upon picking a fight with the enemy, similar to what you’d expect from classic battle sequences in everything from Dragon Quest games, various Legend of Zelda boss encounters and so forth – only switching back to general soundtrack elements once you’ve been completely out of battle mode for long enough. In fact, while the battle themes are still pumping through your sound system, you can keep the increasing number of kill counts moving along to earn special 10-kill, 100-kill, 1,000-kill and various other ozone-busting levels of special kill count designations. Trust me: I’ve already seen in-game alerts that popped up whenever a player managed to get the elusively-higher kill count designations at least once or twice during my play sessions.

Almost...

All things considered, Scarlet Legacy is a decisively-fun MMORPG to experience, provided that you can put up with a few inconsistencies and flaws with some of the compositional elements thereof. I would have been more willing to give a higher recommendation thereof, but the simple, inherent truth of all matters is that every single inconsistency thereof serves as a blood-red marking on an otherwise-solid package. Scarlet Legacy is clearly not for everyone, and the number if gaffes and design choices is utterly inexcusable. True MMORPG aficionados with some of the highest levels of general tolerance will find Scarlet Legacy to be an entirely awe-inspiring gameplay experience; but for everyone else, I would suggest checking around for some more user-friendly MMO experiences. In all consideration, the decision is still yours to make; however, Scarlet Legacy is one of a short list of MMORPG titles within the free-to-play market that almost completely elicits a full case of the “you get what you pay for” expectation level. And I’m sorry tho say that it’s a complete, utterly detrimental shame to see this happen. We all deserve better than this. Case closed.

Jeffrey Davis

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